Information Security encompasses the protection of information against unauthorized disclosure, transfer, modification, or destruction, whether accidental or intentional. Information security has become a prevalent concern of organizations as a result of the trends towards e-commerce, e-business, universal email and web access, and well-publicized security exploits. As a result, organizations are attempting to apply information security principles in a pragmatic framework.
To enable organizations to apply information security principles in a pragmatic framework, a number of information standards and tools have been developed. One widely recognized standard, BS7799/ISO17799, was developed by the British Standards Institution (BSI) and adopted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The BS7799/ISO17799 standard is a comprehensive set of controls that outline best mode practices in information security. The aim of BS7799/ISO17799 is to serve as a single reference point to determine the appropriate information security policy for a variety of systems and organizations. The BS7799/ISO17799 standard includes 10 sections, each addressing a specific area of information security. See, “ISO17799 Security Standard: ISO 17799 Compliance & Positioning.”
The process of managing compliance with the BS7799/ISO17799 is a non-trivial task. As a result, a number of risk analysis and risk management products have been developed to help organizations comply with the BS7799/ISO017799 standard. One such product is COBRA, which was developed by C & A Systems, Inc. COBRA is used to semi-automate the assessment process. COBRA utilizes a series of online questionnaires to obtain information about the current security policy. Using the answers from the questionnaires, COBRA creates reports that provide information about the organization's current compliance position, on a pass/fail basis, with respect to each section of the BS7799/ISO17799 standard.
Another tool that has been developed to enable organizations to apply information security principles in a pragmatic framework is the Systems Security Engineering Capability Maturity Model (SSE-CMM). The SSE-CMM is derived from concepts of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Capability Maturity Model initially created for software development. The SSE-CMM describes the essential characteristics of an organization's security engineering process that must exist to ensure good security engineering. The SSE-CMM does not prescribe a process or standard such as BS7799/ISO17799, but rather uses a model that captures practices generally observed in the industry. Additionally, the SSE-CMM is based on a maturity model that defines specific goals and practices for the entire life cycle of an organization. Further, the SSE-CMM defines an overall assessment process and roles for security engineering within an organization. See, “System Security Engineering Capability Maturity Model-Model & Appraisal Method Summary April 1999.” The resulting assessment obtained from applying the SSE-CCM is typically not associated with a reporting tool to report the maturity level.